AG Paxton Defends President Trump’s “1-in-2-out” Order

Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that Texas joined West Virginia and Wisconsin on an amicus brief filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia defending President Trump’s so-called “1-in-2-out” executive order, which directs federal agencies to repeal two regulations for each new rule they issue.

“The president’s executive order is an important step towards rolling back years of unnecessary and costly regulations that far exceed congressional intent,” Attorney General Paxton said. “Overregulation has harmed economic growth and job creation. The ‘1-in-2-out’ order will help restore regulatory authority to Texas and other states on important matters of local concern.”

Several groups claim that the executive order exceeds President Trump’s constitutional authority and have sued to block it. But in the amicus brief, Attorney General Paxton and the other attorneys general defend the president’s order as lawful:

“The President has constitutional authority to set a regulatory agenda for the various departments and agencies that the President directly oversees. And the President may consider cost, economic policy, and the availability of market-based alternatives when setting that regulatory agenda, so long as those considerations are not prohibited by congressional actions.”

President Trump has vowed to repeal more than half of all the rules in the Code of Federal Regulations, which is 178,000 pages long. Many of the rules are outdated yet have remained in the government’s rule book decades after they were issued.